Summer break – the vanguard Berlin theatre Volksbühne closed its doors barricating the iconic limestone facade with five additional columns. The international architectural collective osa – office for subversive architecture realised this meaningful temporary installation on the front of the historical building.

Planned and built in 1913 by the German architect Oskar Kaufmann the Berlin Volksbühne became one of the first political theatres under the management of the famous artistic director Erwin Piscator in the 1920s. Today the provocative stagings of directors such as René Pollesch, Christoph Schlingensief or Frank Castorf still grab the headlines and are definitely worth a visit!

The eye-catching temporary pavilion for the Bavarian State Opera in Munich was designed by the Austrian architectural practice Coop Himmelb(l)au. Its radical facade is made from perforated and close aluminium sheet. Due to the peaked structure it absorbs the sound of the passing traffic and sets a strong contrast to the neo-classical principal building of the opera. The pavilion was designed for this year’s Opera Festival which goes on until 31 July 2010.

The German architectural collective raumlaborberlin realised this exhibition architecture with a research station called the ‘Futures Exchange’ for this year’s Transmediale festival in Berlin.

Future Exchange by raumlaborberlin

“As primary building materials, the doors of East German panel flats which had to yield to wrecking balls have been salvaged and re-appropriated for use. Originating from Halle-Neustadt they are a symbol for the shrinking and deconstruction of this town, which was conceived in the early 60’s as part of a utopian vision for the post-war modernist city. The doors, representing waste and the failure of the 20th Century’s ideological struggles, now find new life as transmediale.10’s temporary space station for process-based artistic practice.”

At this year’s Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival the Los Angeles based practice Ball-Nogues Studio developed this flexible structure on collaboration with students from the Southern California Institute of Architecture.

'Elastic Plastic Sponge'

Here is what the architects explain:

“The Elastic Plastic Sponge was created by students from the Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-Arc) led by Benjamin Ball, Gaston Nogues and Andrew Lyon of the Ball-Nogues Studio. The Elastic Plastic Sponge is a large scale installation and can be twisted, arched and curled to form different types of space including a lounge, a theater, or a large sculptural Mobius strip. In the desert heat of Indio, the architectural installation will provide a respite from the sun by making shade and mist while at night, each “cell” within the Elastic Plastic Sponge supports a fluorescent tube–the tubes shift in orientation relative to each other to create the effect of sweeping motion. The motion effect is evident from close-up as well as impactful from across the vast festival grounds–an important asset in an environment of throngs of festival-goers and competing spectacles.”

'Elastic Plastic Sponge'

“The Elastic Plastic Sponge is a unique structure. In architecture terminology, the phrase that describes a system whose form is derived from its material properties is “form active.” These types of structures are difficult to study using software. They often require architects to explore their designs by testing full-scale mock-ups, and using that empirical information to help inform the process of digital modeling, which is studied in the studio rather than in the field.

The Elastic Plastic Sponge is comprised of 250 cells, each fabricated using custom jigs designed by SCI-Arc students. The cell module is a very effective way of constructing a temporary structure: each can be transported as a flat unit to the Festival and rapidly assembled on site; after the Festival is over, dismantling and transportation to a new site is easy.”

'Elastic Plastic Sponge'

“From the Festival’s standpoint of an event spanning several days, the Elastic Plastic Sponge can be rapidly reconfigured to create unique spatial arrangements each day; its flexibility allows the designers to adapt to changing crowd, climate and site conditions. From a pedagogical standpoint, the Elastic Plastic Sponge’s mutability enabled students to examine its unique structure at full scale; working and reworking its shape as they would a digital model.”

The international architects Marco Casagrande, Hsieh Ying-chun and Roan Ching-yueh are the WEAK! During this year’s Shenzhen & Hong Kong Bi-City Biennale of Urbanism/Architecturecreated they created this bamboo pavilion, which offers a stage, fireplace and shade.

'Bug Dome' in Shenzhen, China by WEAK!

Here is what the WEAK! explains:

“The building is realized on a wasteland of a ruined building site in-between the Shenzhen City Hall and an illegal workers camp. The design is inspired by insects. The bamboo construction methods are based on local knowledge from rural Guanxi brought into the city by the migrating construction workers.

The space is used during the SZHK Biennale for underground bands, poetry reading, discussions, karaoke and as a lounge for the illegal workers from the neighboring camp. The building offers a shade, a stage and a fireplace. After the Biennale the Bug Dome will act as an un-official social club for illegal workers from the Chinese countryside.”

'Bug Dome' in Shenzhen, China by WEAK!

“The building is weak, flexible and improvised to meet the site-specific conditions. It is growing from a ruin. The architectural control has been given up in order to let the nature step in. The weak architecture is a mediator between the human nature and nature. The construction is a result of participatory planning between the designers, construction workers and local knowledge.

The cocoon is a weak retreat for the modern man to escape from the strength of the exploding urbanism in the heart of Shenzhen. It is a shelter to protect the industrial insects from the elements of un-nature.

When the fire is up a society is born again. One has to take the liberty to travel a thousand years back in order to realize that the things are the same.”

'Bug Dome' in Shenzhen, China by WEAK!

The SZHK Biennale started on Sunday 6 December and continues until 23 January 2010.

The German manufacturer Burkhardt Leitner constructiv is expert for modular architectural systems for temporary constructions in the fields of trade fair and display, office and public space, museum and exhibition. One of their newest developements is ‘PON Sino’, a modular space, inspired by the classic characteristics of a yurt.

'PON Sino' by Burkhardt Leitner constructiv

“Thanks to their high elasticity and resilience, the constructiv PON connecting tubes can be radially shaped under tension in their longitudinal axes. The result is sculptural and amorphous free forms. When dismantled, the elastically shaped tubes spring back into their original shape.

A meshwork of diagonally arranged squares is put together on the floor. By using shortened diagonal braces, this meshwork is shaped under tension into a rotunda. Six connecting tubes sharing the same center complete the rotunda giving it the structure of a tent. By using bielastic fabrics, this structure is turned into a yurt, which can be used in an ideal way as a temporary space to retreat at fairs.”

The New York-based OBRA Architects was invited to acknowledge and mark the first-year anniversary of the Sichuan earthquake through participation in CROSSING: Dialogues for Emergency Architecture, an exhibition on emergency housing at the National Art Museum of China in Beijing.

“Working from New York City, we seek to take advantage of this opportunity to contribute to the victims of future catastrophe around the world by advancing disciplinary thinking about temporary emergency housing.”

The completed full-scale prototype was exhibited in the entry courtyard to the Museum from May 12 to May 24, 2009.

Red + Housing by OBRA Architects

Architecture on the Edge of Survival involves the development of an original prototype of emergency housing for future potential deployment in areas of natural or man-made disaster anywhere in the world. Emergency housing from the point of view of design is only an extreme form of architecture. Its context is that of almost unsustainable conditions, and its object, the creation of an environment we can inhabit temporarily while living on the edge.

Red+Housing is proposed with the knowledge that, when living on the edge of survival, action needs to be decisive and precise. By definition, an emergency will arise suddenly and demand fast response, but the immediate actions we take can have long-term consequences.

Part of the concept: marking the disaster area with the emergency architecture

The design has been developed as an in-progress embodiment of the following 10 Points of Architecture on the Edge of Survival.

01. Universal Application

This prototype aspires to universal applicability. Its development contemplates a series of simple modifications that would make it a useful solution anywhere in the world: add insulation and a stove for cold climates; remove doors and windows for tropical climates; replace materials according with local availabilities, etc.

02. Effective Performance

The project makes economical use of materials by enlisting the structural strength of post-tensioning. The bamboo plywood strips of the dome support the enclosure, with the same force with which a bow propels an arrow into the sky.

03. Economical

The project proposes the use of locally available low-cost materials. The materials are always replaceable and are chosen for their performance rather than appearance. When working in different locations materials which become exotic can be replaced with ones that are locally abundant.

Construction

04. Transportable

All parts are collapsible to flats and can therefore be easily packed and transported.

05. Ease of Assembly

All connections are a simple friction bond of male/female parts which are then secured with a minimum of fasteners.

06. Renewable Materials

In China the project is proposed almost entirely in bamboo plywood, one of earth’s most renewable of materials. The cover fabric can also be considered as woven out of waterproof bamboo fibers.

07. Digitally Pre-fabricated

Digital pre-fabrication makes the project economical in its speed of production and also easy to assemble due to the precision of its fabrication.

08. Open Work

The cruciform house, while iconic, retains in its biaxial symmetry a certain ‘indifference’ that allows its easy recombination with other locally and diversely made structures.

09. Urban/Rural

The geometry of the crosses, when deployed together in groups, defines in-between spaces of infinite flexibility that can suggest an ‘urban’ context for a field of houses. Likewise, if a house is erected by itself, the exterior of the cross creates spaces that mediate between interior and exterior providing a context for people to spend time outside.

10. Flexibility of Use

The geometry of the cross allows the inhabitation of the house as either 1, 2, 3, or 4 different units of housing.

Interior

The value and need of effective emergency housing is self-evident. There are, of course, a number of different approaches to be considered and our intent is to utilize the opportunity of the architectural design process to test and explore possibilities which might best benefit victims. We feel architecture has something to contribute not only to their physical but also to their emotional and psychological well-being. Under the extreme conditions of a situation of emergency, architecture is rarely called upon to participate in the creation of temporary housing. This exhibit provides an opportunity to test how “high design” can contribute to apparently pre-eminently pragmatic concerns. Emergency housing from the point of view of design is only an extreme form of architecture. Its context is that of almost unsustainable conditions, and its object, the creation of an environment we can inhabit temporarily while living on the edge.

Tue 1.9.

With his ‘suburban tipi’ the half-Finnish, half-Italian designer John Paananen earned his Master of Fine Arts in 3D Design at the Cranbrook Academy of Art in 2007.

The idea for a nomadic tipi-like home came when John was reseraching and living in a tradiational yurt, a type of nomadic home which is designed originally by different indigenous peoples.

Inside the 'suburban tipi'

“The ‘suburban tipi’is a fusion of three different nomadic home structures: the yurt, igloo, and tipi. The inspiration for the project was a critical response to living on an idyllic campus surrounded by a hyper-suburbanized landscape. Paananen considered the thought, “What would happen as a result of immobilizing the nomadic home with suburban values, materials and methods of construction? Would the inherently eco-sensitive structures (representing the people that designed them) have a reaction to the suburban cloak and what would that look like? I imagined these holistically designed structures to blister or tumor in reaction to the disconnectedness, artificiality, environmental and social irresponsibility that suburbia is.” The ‘suburban tipi’was first situated on the Cranbrook Academy of Art campus in a courtyard completely surrounded by Finnish architect, Eliel Saarinen designed buildings. The home measures 16 feet tall by 18 feet in diameter and has 255 square feet of living space. Paananen resided in it from January through July 2007. The structure which took about three months to reach completion was carefully deconstructed in three hours by a three person crew. It was then neatly stacked until it was transported by truck to be re-erected at a new location. It currently can be visited at AguaFina Gardens International in Sylvan Lake, Michigan.”